July He Will Fly And Give No Warning to His Flight
by ShinigamiForever
Summary: He realizes he was too late. He realizes that he will always be too late. He wishes for another chance. And he celebrates the birthday of one who is gone. A Draco/Harry slash production. A semi-sequel to "And I, Blindly Looking, Fall."


July He Will Fly, And Give No Warning to His Flight

By: ShinigamiForever

Summary: He realizes he was too late. He realizes that he will always be too late. He wishes for another chance. And he celebrates the birthday of one who is gone. A Draco/Harry slash production.

A/N: Oh wow. That's about all I can say. The reviews I got for 'And I, Blindly Seeking, Fall' just stunned me beyond belief. I don't usually get such warm reviews, and I was just looking for a few 'okay's or 'that's not bad.' So here's another fic of my screwed up head. I was thinking one day, hey, what if Lord Voldemort wins instead of Harry? and I just decided to spin a story that was not really a sequel, but it could be. Hope any reader who passes by will enjoy it. Even if they're not a slash fan.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related do not belong to me. End of story, ne?

===

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

- Marcus Antonius

===

He forgot how to breathe.

He tried to remember how, breathe in, breathe out, but no air came in or out. He panicked, a scurry of dark crows flitting through his veins, black quicksilver.

__

And miles to go before I sleep, 

and miles to go before I sleep.

He was running through the woods, tearing through them. His feet pounded the ground as his robes swirled around him, shafts of moonlight stinging his road in a pale light. The trees closing in on his running figure became looming ferocious giants threatening to bury him in their enclosing perfume and leaves. Their bark gleamed with shadows, the sap glistening like amber flames. His robes and jeans caught at the plants on the ground and snagged against leaves. Painful jolts in his legs alerted him that he had probably caught a thorn. He did not care. 

He ran.

__

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

He had never dreamed of being in this situation. Half formed thoughts of despair stemmed from the very root of conflict, and the dimly alcoholic scent of dark woods at night did not help. He sped through, a shadow among the shadows, blond hair the only beacon of light in the otherwise murky surroundings. White beams flew from strands of hair in fractured angles, throwing rainbow silver through the air. 

He ran.

But he knew he already was too late.

The pulsating beat at his chest told him, instinctively, that he would be too late. It happened in his dreams, and he knew that this was his dream set to light. The dark woods of his nightmare would open up into a small clearing where a figure stood, leaning over the slim figure of another. He would burst into the scene and realize that all he had hoped for was lost.

And still he ran on. He was fueled by irrational hope, a glimmering of a thought that maybe this time he would make it. He knew that if he did not think this way, depression would catch him in its fearsome grip and twist him until his blood ran black. He felt inky snakes already slithering their way through his veins. He bit his lip, worrying it between white teeth as his body thrashed through the plant growth. The soft bedding of leaves and rotting stems diminished the sound of his footsteps. 

He ran.

He could taste the air in his mouth, all stray dust and autumnal beauty. Even though it was summer, the thralls of heated ecstasy of July permeating, the cool of evening wrapped him in its embrace. But he did not stop, even though the acid building in his feet seemed to burn holes through his body. 

The forest was silent except for the small sounds of his breathing and distant birds whispering evening secrets to one another. A flutter of wings matched the gentle brushings of his robe. He could hear the immense sky light stars with its cigarette lighter, a flick for every star in the sky. A burnt out cigar fell from velvet depths. He felt a dull throb coming from his chest, as if someone had pounded a fist against it. He suppressed the urge to cry, but felt the surface of tears starting to bubble, threatening to burst.

A fork in the road before him. He blindly ran on, trusting himself to choose the right path. He couldn't see, a hazy blur of gray and white in front of his eyes. His feet battered the ground relentlessly.

He erupted into the scene like a thundering wild beast, all robes and thorns and plants. The brambles he had run into clung to him. He tore them off with his bare hands, a violent gesture, sending blood through his soft skin. But the pain was numbed by the sight before him. Floods of shock washed over his mind, wiping it blank except for the scene he saw. 

Harry was lying on the ground, crumpled and tossed to one side, as if he was a rejected toy. His robes were in disarray, a multitude of cuts, little daggers in the black fabric, baring his skin and blood. His wand was cracked and splintered, nothing more than a branch fallen off a tree. There was something helpless about the young wizard cast away in such a fashion, a bird with broken wings. A random thought of a fallen star popped into Draco's mind, and he immediately collapsed in front of the broken body, knees digging into the cold dirt of the open clearing. 

He was too late.

He had stopped running, but his brain ran. He was lost, a merry go round of thoughts spinning in his mind, the tell-tale roller-coaster. The dark messenger of grief swept its hawk wings over his face. The soft feathers brushed against his skin; he could almost taste the flavor of anguish in the back of his throat. He had been snared in the trap Fate had set up for him, and he was paying dearly for the path he had chosen.

Gathering up the thin body of his companion in his arms, he turned the face so that Harry would look at him. The eyelashes, mile-long butterfly lashes, rested in dark crescents against pale cheeks. Little streaks of red life spilled from cuts everywhere, sometimes paired with dark patches of bruises. The eyes that had shone with so much life now were closed, hidden behind a flap of skin that seemed so heavy it might never lift again. Raven hair fluttered and danced with each shaky breath. Draco found himself breathing deeply, as if his own breathing could enforce Harry's. He shook the unconscious wizard, a frantic movement that was useless.

"He is dead, boy," said the hissing voice of Voldemort, and he realized with a start the Dark Lord was still there. He could hear the hissing waves of malevolence that came like black lava snakes through the air. The figure, cloaked in black and encircled by a large python, was barely visible from Draco's peripheral vision. He was focused, instead, on Harry's broken frame, still trying to shake him awake, and knowing that each shake spilled more blood on the night tinged grass.

"Harry," he tried, urgency forcing his throat to emit a croaking sound. He murmured the name over and over with stiff lips. Harry was still unresponsive.

"You are wasting your time, young Malfoy," Voldemort taunted, a sneer poised on the hidden mouth. 

"Harry, wake up," he urged again, another gentle shake. Fear gripped his senses; he could hear nothing but the shallow breathing of his companion, nothing but the constant ringing in his ears. His feet were crushed beneath his body and the boy in his arms, but he remained in the position he was in, afraid to let Harry go.

A slight stirring- was it imagined?- caught Draco's eye, and he leaned in closer, inhaling the scent of peppermint and blood that lingered on Harry's skin. He could feel warmth radiating out. Relieved to know that the dark haired boy might still be alive, he exhaled. It was not until he let his breath go that he knew he had been holding it.

"You-?" Draco immediately focused his attention on the young man in his arms, pulling his arms even tighter together. He formed a human cocoon between Voldemort and Harry, a wall of flesh and blood that would do nothing to help Harry. But the need to shield this boy away from the harm caused the instinctive reaction to occur. He shook Harry again. This time, he got a response.

"Christ-" An exclamation of pain cut off the sentence abruptly. Emerald eyes snapped open, blurred with pain and haziness. Shock registered, then more pain, creasing the smooth face with dark emotions. Draco desperately pulled Harry closer to him, feeling both their limbs creak in protest. In the back of his mind, Voldemort's hatred was a display of black and purple.

"I'm so sorry," Draco whispered, dry sobs accenting his words. He watched as Harry's eyes slowly started to cloud up, blinded by the ethereal light of death. He ran his fingers lightly over the fabric of his companion's robe, trying to control his shaking shoulders. 

He had been too late.

The sorrow was an agonized blue in his eyes, staining his vision. He felt as if he would cry, watching Harry's face twist in confusion, then relax as the closing death started to wipe away the realities. A hand groped blindly for Draco, the back of it finally resting against Draco's cheek, a feathery brush of skin to skin. It made him want to cry, the futility of it all resounding like choir bells in his mind, angelic voices. He watched the gemstone eyes fade away, a dull green now. The hand against his cheek continued to move, working its way over the contours of his face.

"Draco…" the voice was hoarse now, forced out from the depths of pain. Draco watched the face contort again, a twitching around the eye, and he tried to make comforting shushing noises. Comfort eluded his speech. He tried to smile, but his lips refused to move. He was petrified into a vision of sorrow.

"All the darkness-" A distressed groan cut the phrase off again, and Harry began to cough dryly. He shook his head in between spasms of coughs, and tried to continue. "All the darkness in the world…" and faded off, his soul wrenched from his body in the last throes of pain. He watched the light fade from the eyes again, gently, as if the approaching dawn was pulling Harry away from him. 

"Kill him, boy. End his misery," came the voice of Voldemort, a stirring of knife blades and dark shadows. 

But he did not have to. For, as he watched, the structure of life collapsed in the world of his friend, and it would never be rebuilt. A last shudder, and the body became limp, lifeless, a shameful mockery of the radiant young man Draco had loved. And the hand that had touched his cheek fell, unsupported, landing on the lush green grass beside him.

All the darkness in the world swept him up in its tides, crashing against the rock shores of his mind.

He could not find the tears to cry.

***

Years later, aimlessly flipping through a book, he came across the completion to Harry's last words.

"All the darkness in the world cannot drown out the light of one candle." 

In its entirety, he understood the intent behind the phrase. Harry had been asking him to be the candle in the dark, shining light to ward off the darkness. However, he felt it in a different way. To him, Harry had been the light of the one candle, and now that the candle had been blown out, there would be no stopping the darkness to swallow the world whole.

He himself had even become part of the darkness.

He picked up his quill pen and drew lines across the phrase until he could not see it under the black ink. 

Some nights, he wakes up to find a name dying on his lips. He sits up in bed, the sheets clenched under his hand so tight there are creases later, and he watches the knuckles drain away until they are bone white. A shifted nightmare fades into the back of his head, and he lies back down, trying to drown himself in the pounding in his ears.

He gathers larkspur flowers when he can and places them in slender glass vases around his house. Their gentle purple color atop slim green stems serve as a painful remainder, a torture he often submits himself too. Their nodding flowers seem to pine for the one born under their month.

Every year, just before July fades into August, he lights a candle in the dark, watching the wax drip on the table, forming rivulets down the wood. Sometimes he writes a name down on the wax, then draws his fingers across it. He is conscious of every shadow in the room watching him. He waits until the candle burns itself out. He follows the tendrils of smoke in the air. The symbolism is ironic. He then pulls away the wax from his shaking fingers and crawls into bed, the image of the dancing flame burned into his eyelids.

"All the darkness in the world cannot drown out the light of one candle."

In dreams, he chases the smoke into oblivion.

===

A/N: Larkspur is the flower for July. I'm not sure if I have the quote correct, I think I do, but anyway. 

Reviews please!


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